Moving Day in Seattle: The Checklist That Actually Works

Seattle adds a few wrinkles to moving that generic checklists miss: it rains a lot of the year, an enormous share of the housing stock involves stairs (basement units, hillside walk-ups, three-story townhomes), street parking for a truck often requires planning, and summer weekends — when everyone moves — book movers out weeks ahead. This checklist runs as a timeline, from eight weeks out to the day itself.

8 weeks out

• Book movers now if you’re moving June–September or on any month-end weekend. Good crews fill up; the leftover inventory is not who you want carrying a piano down hillside steps.
• Get at least three written quotes with an on-site or video survey, not a phone guess. Why it matters: the lowball phone quote becomes a “revised” bill on the truck.
• Decide what’s not making the trip. Every box you don’t move is money. Seattle has robust donation pickup options and active Buy Nothing groups — start offloading early.
• If you’re closing on a purchase, anchor the move to the recorded closing, not the signing date. In Washington you generally get keys when the deed records — here’s exactly when you get keys after closing. Don’t schedule the truck for 9 a.m. on closing day.

4–6 weeks out

• Handle parking for the truck. If either address is on a busy street, in a dense neighborhood, or near construction, look into reserving curb space — Seattle has a temporary-permit process for this, and your moving company may handle it if asked. A truck circling Capitol Hill for 40 minutes is billed time.
• Check building rules for condos and apartments: elevator reservations, certificate-of-insurance requirements from your mover, allowed moving hours. Buildings enforce these.
• Start utility transfers. Electricity, gas, water/sewer/garbage (often city-billed and tied to the property), internet. Schedule stop/start dates that overlap by a day on each end.
• File your USPS change of address, then chase the stragglers: bank, employer, insurance, vehicle registration, voter registration.
• Use up the freezer. Frozen food is the worst cargo there is.

2 weeks out

• Confirm the movers in writing — date, arrival window, crew size, both addresses, stairs/elevator notes, and the inventory.
• Pack everything you won’t touch again, label by destination room, and number the boxes against a master list. Why it matters: “is everything here?” is unanswerable without a count.
• Plan for rain regardless of forecast. Mattress bags, plastic sheeting for the doorway, towels for floors, a tarp for the staging area. October-through-May moves in Seattle should assume water.
• Arrange kids and pets to be elsewhere on the day. Movers with open doors and a cat is a bad combination.
• Photograph valuables and electronics setups before they’re packed (cables included).

Moving week

• Pack the “open first” box: kettle or coffee setup, toilet paper, soap, towels, sheets, phone chargers, basic tools, lightbulbs, trash bags. It rides with you, not in the truck.
• Pack the documents box: closing papers, IDs, leases, medical records. Also rides with you.
• Defrost the fridge/freezer 24–48 hours ahead if it’s coming along.
• Set aside cash or plan for crew tips and day-of payment.
• Do a measurement sanity check: will the sofa make the new stairwell turn? Seattle townhome staircases are narrower than your old place’s, almost as a rule.

Moving day

1. Walk the crew through both ends — what goes, what stays, which boxes are fragile, where the truck parks.
2. Protect the floors at both addresses, especially with wet shoes. If you just bought, you’re one day into owning those floors.
3. Count boxes off the truck against your master list before the crew leaves.
4. Final sweep of the old place: every closet, the dishwasher, the crawl space, behind doors, the mailbox. Take meter photos.
5. Leave keys, garage remotes, and any promised manuals per your sale agreement, lock up, and you’re done.

If your move is tied to a sale

Sellers juggling a sale and a purchase at once have a harder scheduling puzzle — possession dates, rent-backs, and back-to-back closings. Two reads that pair well with this one: buying and selling at the same time in Seattle and the full 2026 selling guide.

And if the move is still ahead of a sale you haven’t started: agent fees are one of the biggest line items in the whole project, and they’re comparable in advance now. Manaky Homes is a free marketplace where Greater Seattle agents publish their fees side by side — hop on the waitlist before you hire anyone.